Carbon Capture
Last updated
Last updated
Each year marks significant progress toward net-zero emissions, propelled by the efforts of environmentally conscious companies such as those we will be mentioning below. These companies spur Circularity to fund carbon-negative initiatives and build our own carbon capture facilities. Moving forward, these and similar companies are allies in Circularity’s efforts to accelerating carbon capture technology adoption.
Carbfix is a partnership formed between leaders of the industrial and academic sectors of Iceland to address the country’s carbon dioxide emissions.
In 2012, Carbfix oversaw the injection of around 200 tons of carbon dioxide into subsurface basalts. Come 2016, 95% of the carbon dioxide injected had solidified into calcite in just two years, eliminating it from the atmosphere forever. Carbfix is optimistic about this carbon capture method, with experts refining it for implementation in other areas.
Climeworks is a Swiss company that has adopted Carbfix’s technology. Its Orca project is a direct air capture approach that disposes of carbon dioxide emissions permanently (through mineralization) instead of recycling or selling them.
Climeworks aims to capture 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions per year. It was inaugurated in 2021, and its Orca plant in Hellisheidi (Iceland) is set to capture 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Since the 1990s, Aker has pioneered multiple carbon capture and storage projects from Norway, all the way across Europe and through the global Aker group.
Aker supplies facilities of all sizes with more than 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Additionally, the company offers carbon capture services, wherein customers pay Aker for every metric ton of carbon dioxide removed from their emissions. It is, in all essence, “Carbon Capture as a Service” or CCaaS, and it may hold the keys to the future of this industry.
Carbon Clean is a London-based company that has been working toward reducing global greenhouse gas emissions since 2009. Running more than 44 facilities worldwide, it has filtered more than 1.5 million metric tons of carbon.
The CycloneCC project stars the company’s advanced amine-promoted buffer salt solvent and processing technology for a more efficient and cost-effective approach to capture. The project is estimated to capture 300 tons of carbon dioxide on a daily basis, totaling to a cost of, at most, $30 per metric ton of CO2.
Headquartered in Canada, Carbon Engineering utilizes direct air capture. Carbon dioxide is filtered from the air through industrial fans, undergoing a series of chemical processes wherein the gas is concentrated into tiny pellets. These pellets can be a component of a carbon-neutral fuel alternative.
Carbon Engineering is pushing for the commercialization and large-scale adoption of direct air capture technology. It has a large-scale plant that is under construction in Texas and will begin operations by 2024.
